Solar thermochemical water splitting was successfully demonstrated with monolithic receiver-reactors in field at 50 kW scale. Since monolithic receiver-reactors are limited in size, several of the reactors will have to be combined in receiver-reactor arrays for large-scale plants. In this study, the yearly performance of solar thermochemical plants for hydrogen production implementing receiver-reactor arrays is investigated. Thereto, a transient receiver-reactor model is used in combination with realistic hourly flux profiles from dedicated MW high temperature solar concentrator systems. The batched operation of receiver-reactors leads to particular requirements of the array. Therefore, an array efficiency is introduced and different control strategies for the solar field are analyzed for performance optimization. Advanced strategies have the potential to substantially (~46%) improve the overall performance compared to the base case. Further design and operational optimization approaches are discussed, which allow approaching the theoretical array performance limit.

太阳能接收器与反应器在50 kW规模下成功地进行了太阳能热化学水分解的演示。由于整体式接收器-反应器的尺寸受到限制，因此对于大型工厂，必须将几个反应器组合在接收器-反应器阵列中。在这项研究中，研究了使用接收器-反应器阵列的太阳能热化学工厂用于制氢的年性能。到目前为止，瞬态接收器-反应器模型与来自专用MW高温太阳能集中器系统的实际每小时通量曲线结合使用。接收器-反应器的分批操作导致对阵列的特殊要求。因此，引入了阵列效率，并且分析了针对太阳能场的不同控制策略以进行性能优化。与基本情况相比，高级策略有可能（约46％）显着提高整体性能。讨论了进一步的设计和操作优化方法，可以接近理论的阵列性能极限。